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There have been 36 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Bulgaria in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 1399, according to an evening update on April 28 by the national operational headquarters.

The death toll remains unchanged from 24 hours ago, at 58.

The number of people in
hospital has gone down from 301 to 287. Thirty-nine are in intensive
care, the same figure as 24 hours ago.

Antonii, Bulgarian
Orthodox Church Metropolitan of Western and Central Europe, has
proposed that the church’s priests be tested for Covid-19,
specialist church news website Dveri said.

He said that priests
were on the front line, alongside doctors, nurses and police. Given
that Bulgarian Orthodox Church churches are open and anyone can
attend and participate in worship, it is important to prevent
possible contamination, Antonii believes.

Dveri
said that prior to the Orthodox Easter, the operational headquarters
had offered the possibility of testing to the church hierarchy, but
they had turned the offer down.

Turkey’s
consulates in Plovdiv and Bourgas donated essential equipment for the
fight against Covid-19.

In
Plovdiv, Turkish consul-general Hussen Ergani handed mayor Zdravko
Dimitrov 100 reusable overalls of high-quality protective fabric,
which had been made in Bulgaria using fabric from Turkey, Plovdiv
municipality said on its website.

In
Bourgas, Turkey’s consulate handed over 300 high-quality protective
overalls to be distributed to health care facilities, the
municipality said.

The
Appellate Prosecutor’s Office in Varna has placed under its special
supervsion more than 276 pre-trial proceedings in the appellate
region for violating the rules and measures against the spread of
Covid-19 and State of Emergency regulations,
the Prosecutor’s Office said on April 28.

Of this
total, four pre-trial proceedings are for disseminating fake news
regarding the coronavirus infection, the statement said.

There
are 148 pre-trial proceedings in Varna for breaking quarantine, 47 in
Razgrad.

The educator’s trade union, with the Podkrepa labour federation, has called for all school pupils, including those in the seventh and 12th grades, to complete the school year via distance learning.

The
Ministry of Education has not announced a decision about what to do
about the balance of the 2019/2020 school year.

The
Animus
Association said that since the State of Emergency in Bulgaria
started on March 13, nearly 240 people had
called its hotline, which offers support and referral of victims of
domestic violence to social services.

Bulgarian National Radio reported the association as saying that since Covid-19 came to Bulgaria, complaints of domestic violence had increased. Nadezhda Stoycheva, clinical psychologist and a director of the foundation, said most victims were women. Often, assaults were reported by relatives or neighbours, usually in smaller settlements.

About 25 per cent of women are victims of bullying, including well-educated women of high social status, the report said.

The Sofia District Court quashed Ataka party leader and Sofia city councillor Volen Siderov’s bail of 50 000 leva on charges that he had instigated a breach of quarantine measures during the Orthodox Easter holidays.

Judge Nikolai Urumov said that the prosecutor’s order imposing the bail was illegal.

Siderov
was charged in connection with comments in a party political
television broadcast opposing wearing masks in church and his call to
people to go to church en masse at Easter.

Prosecutors
said that Siderov had called on people to breach the measures to curb
the Covid-19 pandemic, but Judge Urumov said that prior to and during
the Easter holidays, there had been no legal ban on going to church.

Siderov
has bail of 50 000 leva on another charge, also connected with
comments he made in a television broadcast.

The
restrictions imposed on flights between Bulgaria and the United
Kingdom have been lifted and Bulgaria Air
is resuming its flights from Sofia to London from May 1, the airline
said on April 28.

Borissov was citing figures from the European
Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which show Bulgaria as
having the lowest number of people ill from Covid-19 per 100 000
population and in third place after Slovakia and Latvia in the number
of deaths per 100 000 population.

There will be no military parade on Bulgaria’s
May 6 Armed Forces Day, the head of the operational headquarters
against Covid-19, Major-General Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, said
on April 28.

For the rest of The Sofia Globe’s
continuing coverage of the Covid-19 situation in Bulgaria, please
click here.

Section supported by the Embassy of
Switzerland

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